How to Grieve -- A Poem

Please don’t tell me how to grieve;
for when I lost my baby I fell to the ground.
I just didn’t know what else to do
when my baby didn’t made a sound.
Please don’t tell me how to grieve
as if you have walked in my shoes.
I delivered my baby after his death
and it was a horrible way to lose.


Please don’t act as my grieving should be done.
Sure time has passed and the rawness of pain is gone.
Grief is a season, a time to cry. 
It takes time to say goodbye.
I am adjusting everyday to what death took in vain.
I am learning to live with the tremendous pain.


Please stop telling me how to grieve by suggesting
that I just remember the others, but forget the one.
Doing so only makes me feel alone,
because you don’t want to remember my son.
Please know that I love my other children well,
so do not be feared;
If it weren’t for their kisses and hugs
I may have simply disappeared.


Please don’t tell me how to grieve
as if you know how I love.
Do you really know what it is like
to love a child who was sent above?
I miss my baby boy. 
He was Expected. Cherished. Loved.
This kind of motherly love for all my children is the same.
Hearing you say I need to love him less
makes his death feel like shame.


Please don’t tell me not to grieve by insisting
I just get it off of my mind.
The memory of his death and birth
is deep and sad and just not kind.
Time may have passed but I can remember
the nightmare of what I went through.
Honestly, I never knew such bad dreams could even come true.


Please don’t judge how I grieve, as I will listen to you,
and think I am doing it all wrong.
And if I think, you think the worse of me,
it only makes me feel like I don’t belong.
Instead come along and hold my hand
so that I am not alone;
If you walk beside me, you can show me
how much I have grown.


Please don’t ask me how I am doing
with an expected answer of “FINE”
I have many more fine moments now,
but they don’t happen all the time.
Please as I grieve let me say
all I need to say in order to share.
Because what I really need is for you to just be there.